Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust expert writes about protecting nature in the face of development pressure

While our nature reserves are the most visible part of our work to protect species and habitats, our work in the planning system, although vital, goes largely unseen, writes Erin McDaid of Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust.

Chaining ourselves to diggers or railings has never been our style, but a dogged determination to give nature a voice and to stand up wildlife under threat is part of our organisational DNA.

It was the campaign to prevent former quarry lagoons at Attenborough Nature Reserve that led to the establishment of our charity back in the 1960s, and since winning the battle to safeguard habitats at Attenborough, we’ve been fighting wildlife’s corner ever since.

While changes in farming practice have undoubtedly had the greatest impact on our landscape, with many species pushed to the brink, agricultural change in the rural landscape can be incremental, imperceptible almost, happening at a pace that doesn’t often precipitate protest.

However, when land comes under threat of development, the prospect of land disappearing under concrete or tarmac often causes great concern and triggers efforts to hold back the tide of ‘progress’.

Here at Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust, we are not anti-development — we all live in houses, use the road network to get about the county and benefit from other built facilities — but we firmly believe that development must not be at the expense of nature and must not preclude peoples access to it.

Sensitively located, well-designed development can deliver good wildlife habitat and access to wildlife rich green spaces for people.

However, the planning system is complex, unwieldy and to most people largely opaque. Throw in decades of under-funding of local councils and massively effective lobbying from developers with a vested interest in generating multi-million-pound profits, and the prospects of great outcomes for nature and communities keen to protect much-loved wildlife and green spaces look bleak.

Such are the pressures within the system that all Governments at least talk of overhauling the system. In reality, reforms never see the light of day or are drastically watered down.

With the new government seeming determined to deliver reform, Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust stands ready to engage constructively with any meaningful consultation. In the meantime, we will continue to seek the best outcomes for people and nature within the current system.

Working in planning is hugely time consuming and often frustrating. Underfunding of Local Planning Authorities has left many without the adequate resources to ensure that all development plans are rigorously scrutinised for impacts on nature, or that developers fulfill their promises and legal obligations once planning permission has been granted.

All too often the Wildlife Trust offers the last line of defence for nature, with our dedicated staff carefully reviewing hundreds of proposals a year and offering detailed advice and guidance to planning officers under pressure to get decisions through committees.

Locally we are effectively the only charity that routinely invests in local planning matters in all parts of the county, rural and urban.

When planning authorities no longer have adequate resources to insist and check that developer have completed proper species surveys or to monitor and enforce planning conditions or any mitigation for impact on nature, it can seem like an uphill battle — but we persevere because we care, and we know others do too.

Our team works to ensure that key wildlife areas are not allocated for future development in local plans. When individual planning applications come forward, we review as many as possible to ensure that key habitats and protected species are threatened — and to look for opportunities to put nature back.

This work is only possible thanks to our members and donors, but with each local plan cycle, protecting the best areas for wildlife becomes harder as more and more of the areas least likely to damage or disturb wildlife if developed have already been built on.

With habitats and species under more threat than ever, pressure for new development continues to be cranked up, meaning something must give.

We’re determined to continue standing up for nature and to make clear that any reforms designed to speed up development must be balanced with commitments to protect our most valuable wildlife areas; to create more space for nature and to ensure that new development delivers investment to reverse nature’s decline.